[bombcar]

Coops are basically geared toward mediocre success - because there's really no pressure to risk aiming for amazing/startup-style success.

Ownership structure doesn't change many of the business risks, but coops can avoid the "expand or die" that sometimes normal companies experience.

The largest coops are mutuals (think: insurance) and banks (think: credit union).

Others exist in farmer's coops (Land o' Lakes, Dairy Farmers of America, etc).

https://ncbaclusa.coop/blog/2022-world-cooperative-monitor-r...

The hardest part is converting an existing corporation into a coop.

The vast majority of coops are, like credit unions, relatively small and local. Instead of expanding to new areas, they often "split" into new areas, so you'd expect them to remain just below the noise threshold of the large multinationals.

[ForTheKidz]

> Coops are basically geared toward mediocre success - because there's really no pressure to risk aiming for amazing/startup-style success.

I'm just straight-up offended at this. Co-ops are the job most people want. What you refer to as "amazing success" is dismantling our society and the people who run them appear to struggle to empathize with other humans.

Granted, i'm sure coops can be equally antisocial and misanthropic. But growth surely isn't what we want to be optimizing for.

[jjj123]

I think you and I have the same values but I wasn’t offended by the parent comment at all.

It’s clear they meant success as in success in profit and growth, and in that lens, coops do tend towards mediocre success because incentives are different. But I don’t see that as a bad thing, and I don’t think OP does either?

[tonymet]

are there any examples?

[ForTheKidz]

Enshittification is the most obvious one—we should be nationalizing efficient processes at the point they fail to yield further productivity gains.

I don't really have much energy to argue with true believers today, so all I'll say is "read schumpeter dammit". For an industry allegedly founded by the dude I haven't met a single person working with VCs who's actually read the man. He would not consider today's America to have a healthy economy.

[tonymet]

this doesn't sound like an example, more of a complaint

[ForTheKidz]

You didn't bother to articulate what particular claim you wanted an example on. I can't read minds, and you're wasting my time.

[tonymet]

> " Co-ops are the job most people want."

-- what are some examples?

[surgical_fire]

> Coops are basically geared toward mediocre success

There's something deeply wrong with a society that can label moderate success as "mediocre".

I wish society gave more incentives to healthy, moderately successful, profitable companies instead of "growth and greed at all costs" success.

Or, as you put it, "amazing/startup-style success". Fuck that noise.

[kbxogdgkdhop]

the phrase you're looking for to describe "mediocre success" is "sustainable business".

expand or die is a bullshit concept employed by those more concerned with a quick buck than creating something lasting

[bombcar]

Exactly - it's like the startup vs "lifestyle business" (we have to keep making terms for what just used to be "business") discussion.

The sad part is when something on the startup track fails as a startup but is a perfectly workable "lifestyle" business; but it can't switch tracks and instead plows along until destroyed.